Marc Minkowski

06 December 2010

This was billed as a concert performance of Handel's Alcina, but it wasn't one of those nose-in-book affairs. With the musicians and most of the cast fresh from a fully-staged version at Vienna's Staatsoper (the first baroque opera there in 40 years!), the awkwardly wide Barbican stage was put to good use for once. Singers sang to each other not their scores, toyed with improbable props (a sheet of paper for an urn....please), and faux 18th century settees were distributed on either side of an orchestra twice the size of Handel's. But then Marc Minkowski's approach to period performance has never been the emaciated doctrinaire type. Vibrato was flaunted, instrumental soloists stepped up front to do their bit.

18 May 2009

I don't know if many opera houses would dare copy what Zurich Opera did at the Royal Festival Hall on Sunday afternoon. That's bring a whole new opera production - minus sets and costumes but including full cast and orchestra - all the way to London halfway through its first ever run (10 to 26 May). Crazy! But it meant we got to see a superbly rehearsed orchestra, a top flight international cast (the best that deep Swiss pockets could purchase) and a semi-staging alive with the wit and vitality of David Pountney's production.

Pountney sees Handel's tale of scheming Romans as a comic satire. Marc Minkowski agrees. Hairshirt historical purists would have been horrified by his arching phrases, vibrato, and - worst of all - a teeny quote from Chopin's Marche funèbre tucked behind the premature announcement of Emperor Claudio's death. On a plug-in organ no less. How 'correct' it all is remains debatable, but it certainly sounded 'right'.

In front of the orchestra on the unadorned Royal Festival Hall stage and stripped of her Zurich appurtenances of leopardskin coat and hanging carcases, Vesselina Kasarova's Bette Davis style mugging in the title role was as bizarre as her mannered singing with its pronounced register break between velvety chest and gleaming top. But her coloratura was precise, her pianissimi secure, and her every appearance on stage was undeniably captivating.

None of the remaining cast could match her on the scenery-chewing front, but they all threw themselves whole-heartedly into convincing physical portrayals, with some enterprising use of the limited space around the podium and behind the orchestra. There was some impressive singing from the other two mezzos, Marijana Mijanović as the trusting Ottone and Anna Bonitatibus as Agrippina's dim son Nerone. Eva Liebau's sweet Poppea didn't seem much of a schemer compared with Kasarova, but her lovelorn arias were more convincing.

It was a pleasure to hear László Polgár's inimitably sonorous bass as Claudio - and how deftly his heavy instrument handled the ornamentation. Baritone Ruben Drole and countertenor José Lemos as the easily-duped Pallante and Narciso provided some purely comic relief. Even the small parts of Giunone and Lesbo were handled with style by Wiebke Lehmkuhl and Gabriel Bermudez.

In all, it was a demonstration of how much a well-directed staging, however limited by space and equipment, can add to to a concert performance. Not to mention how much more clearly Handel's music is revealed when interpreted with instinct as well as intellect.

At the ENO, David Alden's hotly-anticipated new Peter Grimesopens. Stuart Skelton, Amanda Roocroft, Gerald Finley and Felicity Palmer sing, Edward Gardner conducts. The second new production of the month is film director Abbas Kiarostami's first venture into opera, Così fan tutte.

Purcell's King Arthur is performed in concert at the Barbican on 6 May by Le Concert Spirituel. There are limited *free* tickets for under-26's for this one (check out the freeB link on the Barbican site).

17 May is Handel-fest day. Christopher Hogwood's Academy of Ancient Music bring Arianna in Cretato the Barbican. Miah Persson, Lisa Milne and Sonia Prina appear as originally scheduled, but Kristina Hammarström replaces the previously-announced Angelika Kirchschlager.

The performance starts at 6.30pm, so there should be (just) enough time to get there from Zurich Opera's Agrippina, which begins at 2pm in the Royal Festival Hall. The impressive cast joining Marc Minkowski and Zurich Opera's specialist period ensemble, Orchestra La Scintilla, includes Vesselina Kasarova, Eva Liebau, Marijana Mijanovic and Anna Bonitatibus.

The other operatic event worth mentioning is not in London at all, but in Manchester. Over two nights, 9 and 10 May, Mark Elder and the Hallé Orchestra perform Götterdämmerung in concert at the Bridgewater Hall, with Katarina Dalayman as Brünnhilde. If this was in London, tickets would go in a flash, but there are still plenty of seats available. Manchester is clearly a harder sell. It rather underlines the folly of the Royal Opera House's plans to create a Mancunian outpost. Northern opera lovers may be dedicated - there just aren't a lot of them.

On 31 May, Rene Pape joins Vladimir Jurowski and the LPO at the Royal Festival Hall for the UK premiere of Torsten Rasch's 2003 song cycle Mein Herz brennt. This is (loosely) based on the music of headbanging German industrial metallers Rammstein - a fact the Southbank promo guff intriguingly fails to mention. Not as scary as it sounds though, as the source material is engulfed by Jurowski's favoured big-boned retro-nouveau Eastern bloc neo-romanticism (or Vladcore for short).

One of the most intriguing events of the month is a Barbican concert on 30 May. Various artists including the Britten Sinfonia perform the Music of Moondog , and there are companion pre, post and interval events, including an 11.30pm concert at St Giles Cripplegate,Moondog Around Midnight .

20 January 2009

Marc Minkowski brought his Musiciens du Louvre to the Barbican on Sunday night to celebrate St Cecilia, patron saint of music and itchy underwear, in the form of choral works by three 2009 anniversarians. Handel set Dryden's Ode for St Cecilia's Day and Purcell a knockoff by Nicholas Brady. Haydn squeezes in on a technicality; his Missa Cellensis acquired the name Missa Sanctae Caeciliae some time after composition.

The Olympian scale endurance event sprawled over nearly four hours of Sunday evening - something the Barbican omitted to mention in advance, or even in the programme as they usually do. For baroque opera regulars, it was a breeze, but not everyone lasted the course. Purcell alone was enough to empty a few seats, and the press pack were amongst the late casualties who skipped the extended encore.

I'm generally not that keen on Purcell, but Hail Bright Cecilia shows him at his most inventive, with the 'warbling lute' , the 'am'rous flute' and all the other instruments descriptively scored. Minkowski's band played vibrantly - he's no historical authoritarian.

There was some immaculate solo singing, particularly from tenor Anders Dahlin - a true haute-contre - and the peaches and cream soprano of Lucy Crowe, fairy-like in a glittering duck egg blue mermaid gown. A couple of the soloists, countertenor David Bates and bass-baritone Neil Baker, were drawn from the choir, and their excellent performances were indicative of the high choral standard overall. The only complaint is that what seemed a deliberate attempt not to over-enunciate consonants made porridge of some of the text.

A haunting solo cello introduction set the tone for some fearless and spirited Handel. As with Purcell, the text inspires some vivid writing. Richard Croft relished the military insistence of the double, double, double beat in The trumpet's loud clangour. Lucy Crowe held the whole house in pindrop silence with the poised and plangent The soft complaining flute.

There was only time for the Kyrie and Gloria of Haydn's mass on the programme, though no doubt Minkowski would happily have given us the whole lot. Written just seven years after Handel's death, it seems a lifetime apart in its assured classicism, and Minkowski subtly but decisively switched gears to highlight this. There was not a hint of fatigue from him or from any of the performers.

Interrupting the applause to offer 'the best' of the remaining parts, he launched into a twenty minute chunk of the Credo. The stately and thinly-scored Et incarnatus est for tenor solo turned out to be Richard Croft's finest moment of the night.

Viennese operetta is like the morris dancing of Austria - deeply ingrained in the cultural heritage, ineffably inexplicable and best enjoyed at source. For Angelika Kirchschlager the attraction is obvious but what Simon Keenlyside's doing is anybody's guess (clues here). It sounds like mating music for teddy bears. Still, it has plenty of fans, and they were out in full gushing force at the Barbican.

La Kirchschlager accomodated herself to the medium successfully. This kind of thing plays to her assets - the charm, the warmth, the almost conversational way with words - without drawing too much attention to her - oops - threadbare lower register. She looked yummy in the same purple satin frock she'd worn at the Proms and cavorted girlishly around the first violins, sounding pearlescently perfect up top.

Simon Keenlyside on the other hand was like a Ferrari in a 30mph zone. He was clearly having a great deal of fun with the physical side of the performance - not least when he got a message from a bottle as his beery prop suddenly spurted forth. He couldn't wait to obliterate the unwanted froth (I'd had enough of it by then, too), crouching down and mopping up with his hanky as he sang.

But Simon's qualities rest in elegance and nobility, and too much of the material was the opposite. Not to mention shoved down from higher keys - to its detriment. The worst culprit was his encore, Lehár's Dein ist mein ganzes Herz - it just cries out for a big, ringing tenor.

The sweetly bonkers Marc Minkowski and his mostly French band sounded out of place too, lumpish and coarse where they should have been crisp as Strudel and unctuous as Schlagobers. There's only one way to play this music, and it's the way handed down by unbroken performance tradition in Vienna.

It is only fair to say that I was very much the mouse pewp in the chocolate box- every number was rapturously received by the vast majority of the audience. I just hope it's a diversion for Simon Keenlyside, not a new career direction .